As part of my blog posts, I will be providing regular reviews and recommendations on specific genre or types of board games. In this recommended worker placement board games post, let’s take a look at the game, Paladins of the West Kingdom by GarpHill games.

What are worker placement board games?

These games involve players managing a personal or shared supply of available workers and resources. Resources and workers are used to perform actions to get ahead in the game (scoring of points, gaining abilities that improve point scoring capability or opening up new actions). Typically, players will have a choice of personal and shared actions (available to all) and they will have to compete to gain access to these actions. This results in one having to think about:

Which actions to pursue based on their rewards and costs

When to take actions to get ahead in the game

Preventing opponents from taking actions to stop their progress

Now, back to Paladins of the West Kingdom

The game is set in the medieval ages where you recruit workers and manage resources to defend against the Outsiders who are plundering your kingdom. Game is played across 2 boards – a main board and a player board. The game is played in 7 rounds and in each round, players take turns to perform actions.

Paladins of the West Kingdom Main Board

The main board represents the broader Kingdom and involves actions and rewards available to all players. Players compete to take these actions by fulfilling the associated their associated conditions. You will have the option to Attack the Outsiders, Convert the Outsiders to your faith, Recruit Townsfolk, Garrison Outposts, Commission Monks to spread faith throughout the land or Fulfil the King’s orders. These actions allow players to stake a claim on various rewards, which provide immediate resources or an ongoing ability.

The player boards track your attributes (Strength, Influence and Fatih) , outposts, monks and the Paladin you have chosen to assist you. There are also actions available to you on your Player Board. You will be able to Fortify your area to gain rewards, take the Pray action to re-use your workers and perform more actions to gain an advantage or Develop and reduce the cost of actions in future rounds.

Paladins of the West Kingdom Player Board

Actions are not for free and may require certain level of attributes

Most actions require you to pay a cost. These costs involve silver, provisions and workers of various types. Certain actions and their associated rewards are restricted by your attributes (Strength, Influence and Faith). To attain them, you will need to work at taking actions to improve them.

At the end of the 7th round, the game ends and players calculate their Victory Points earned. Your past completed actions and rewards will determine your number of Victory Points.

Paladins of the West Kingdom is deep in strategy. The type of actions that you can take and rewards that you can attain will be dependent on:

The type and number of workers you collect

Your supply of silver/provisions

Your attributes

This will require you to think about which areas to focus on, when to focus, which rewards to target to help you get ahead of the game. The game doesn’t just revolve around you. The presence of the main board and its rewards, require you to also be aware of what’s available to your opponents as they may get ahead if they manage to take advantage of some the available actions.

The need to manage and optimise various factors results in the game having multiple options to victory. If you like games that require you to plan ahead, optimise and react dynamically to player decisions, this is a game I recommend you consider.

]]>https://daroolz.com/recommended-worker-placement-board-games-paladins-of-the-west-kingdom/feed/0Maracaibo – a game of exploration, adventure and conquestshttps://daroolz.com/maracaibo-a-game-of-exploration-adventure-and-conquests/
Tue, 19 Nov 2019 05:32:42 +0000https://daroolz.com/?p=4722Maracaibo – a game of exploration, adventure and conquests Read More »]]>

What is Maricaibo Board Game about?

Maracaiboboard game is an ambitious game. It is the 17th Century, and you are a seafarer exploring and trying to gain influence and riches in the Caribbean. England, France and Spain are the nations fighting for supremacy in this region. Fight for them and gain riches and influence or trade in goods, explore cities, complete projects to build your wealth.

All these actions will contribute to your Victory Points and this will decide if you win the game. While doing this, fulfil quests and uncover stories that introduce new elements to the game.

What do players do in Maricaibo?

In each turn, you sail your ship and explore various locations. Depending on your ship’s location, you can choose to perform different types of tasks.

Explore the Caribbean in the game Maricaibo

As a seafarer, you will possess career cards and of course, a ship. Complete the tasks required by your career cards or upgrade your ship to add to your Victory Points.

Your ship board in the game Marcaibo

Here are some examples of different tasks:

At a city:

Choose to trade and deliver goods at a city’s market or

Fight with a nation to gain influence with them

Move your explorer down explorer tracks on the board and gain rewards

At a village:

Get doubloon (money)

Discard cards to re-draw at a later phase

Buy and use one of your project cards

Invest in prestige buildings

At a quest location:

Fulfil quests and gain rewards

Fulfil story quests that introduce new quests or stories to the game

You will continue to move and take various actions to earn rewards and build your wealth and influence.

How does the game end?

There are 2 phases of scoring: Interim and Final scoring.

Interim Scoring:

When you reach a particular location (known as a Homeward Bound Space) in the Caribbean, you will begin your interim scoring. You will score Victory Points based on your previous actions and rewards.

Final Scoring:

When you reach the next ‘homeward bound space’, you will proceed to the final scoring of your Victory Points and the game ends for you.

]]>What Kind of Board Games Are There Blog Serieshttps://daroolz.com/what-kind-of-board-games-are-there-blog-series/
https://daroolz.com/what-kind-of-board-games-are-there-blog-series/#respondTue, 22 Oct 2019 06:22:43 +0000https://daroolz.com/?p=4295What Kind of Board Games Are There Blog Series Read More »]]>

I am a casual tabletop gamer and I just realised I don’t have a clue on what kind of board games are there. This series of blog posts hopes to help change that.

Board games are popular again!

Who knew that board games would become popular again? The digital age has changed the way we communicate, interact and entertain ourselves. It is no surprise that we are now seeking ways to bring back activities that encourage physical interaction. Playing board games is the perfect activity to interact with people, physical games pieces, think and make decisions.

Confused by the different kinds of board games!

This growing interest has encouraged game design experts and hobbyists to develop new kinds of board games. Have you walked into a shop or browsed on Amazon and find yourself overwhelmed by board games with different gameplay mechanics. Which game do you choose? How do you know if you will like it or get frustrated with the gameplay? You try reading the reviews but see terms like “Engine-building”, “Living Card Game” and”Tile-Placement” and start wondering, “what do they mean?”

Some soul searching to better understand what games excite, delight and frustrate

I’ve decided to write these series blog posts to research and answer the following questions: What kind of board games are there?What kind of board games do I like? What kind of board games should I buy? Hopefully, these posts will help you discover what games are out there, what you like and what you don’t like.

Here are the various types of games that we will be exploring. Do note that these are not mutually exclusive. You will find that there are games that make use of a combination of mechanics for their gameplay. The list is also not exhaustive but for the time being, I will focus on the main types.

Auctioning / Bidding

As the title suggests, this involves players bidding for resources, rewards, etc. Games like Monopoly have this element in them.

Area Control

You compete with others for control over a particular area on the map or board. The more space you cover the better. The game, Risk, is an example.

Card Drafting

A set of cards are passed around and you pick the one that gives you the best advantage in the game. Sushi Go is a great example of such a game.

Card Drafting

Economic

Games that involve trading and making money or profit. Games like monopoly and Power Grid

Cooperative

Instead of competing, you work with your friends to meet the game’s objectives. If you don’t meet it, all of you lose. Popular examples are Pandemic, Magic Maze and Forbidden Island.

Deck Building

You create a deck of cards with different abilities and play it against others. This is a popular type of game. Think of Pokemon, Yugi-oh, Magic the Gathering.

Deck Building

Deduction

Winning such games is usually based on guessing the right outcome or person, using clues in the game. Think of Cluedo or The Resistance (a deduction game with player interaction)

Dice Rolling

You roll dice to determine outcomes in the game.

Dexterity

These games involve some physical activity and tests your ability to be quick and fast. An example is the soccer flicking game Subbuteo or Klask

Drawing

Just one word to describe this. Pictionary!

Engine Building

Such games involve collecting cards, components and executing different objectives to upscale your capability in the game and help you win.

Hand Management

Involves managing your hand of cards. Such games usually involve strategising on when to use a card, keep or discard a card.

Legacy

Legacy games have become popular. You have award winning games like Pandemic Legacy that have put such games in the spotlight. Legacy games evolve each time it is played. This involves unlocking new rules, characters or scenarios after each game.

Pattern Building

Build a pattern, earn points and win. Games like Azul fall in this category.

Real-Time

Games that occur simultaneously. No turns. Everyone moves at the same time. Magic Maze is such an example.

Azul is a simple board game where players take turns drafting coloured tiles to their player board and score points based on how they’ve placed them. Bonus points are earned when specific sets or patterns are completed. Players are given negative points if there are unused tiles.

Get ahead of your friends with some of these Azul board game strategy tips:

The objective of the game:

Score as many tiles as possible every round (total of 5). For example, if you score 5 tiles every round for 5 rounds, you’ve achieved the highest attainable score

Strategy Tips:

Plays that lead to negative points are not always bad It’s better to accept some negative points if it lets you score a tile in that round.

Tile placement tips for newcomersFor newcomers to the game, try building your board starting from the centre. This will give you options when placing your next tiles (you can place either left or right).

Pay attention to your opponentsPay attention to your opponent’s board, so that you are alert to what tiles they’re planning to get

Place tiles on 1st rowWhenever possible, place a tile on the 1st row, until you have 4 tiles there. It will give you the option to end the game and can be powerful as it may place pressure on your opponents to make risky plays.

Regardless of this, this gives you the chance to end the game for the win when you are ahead.

Do not end the round with a single tile in the bottom 2 rowsNever finish the round with a single tile in the bottom two rows. Doing so will force you to take tiles of that colour in the next turn as you will need to fill up those rows. If you don’t fill up those rows, they will remain blocked. You will also find yourself in negative points if the opponents take advantage and force you to pick multiple tiles you cannot hold.

Azul: Strategies and Tips

Azul board game strategy tips. Learn the logic to apply when taking your moves. which tiles to draft and ways to maximize your Victory Points.

Azul – 5 of a Kind Is a Trap!

Azul, a simple and fun board game with lots of interesting points of strategy.

Azul: My Favorite Game Mechanism

Jamey discusses his favorite mechanism in a drafting game, Azul.

]]>https://daroolz.com/azul-board-game-strategy/feed/0Learning about science board games can be great fun and help increase one’s knowledgehttps://daroolz.com/learning-about-science-board-games-can-be-great-fun-and-help-increase-ones-knowledge/
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This week, we focus on Science Fiction Board Games. In this post, we look at some of the games that are not only entertaining and challenging but can help improve your knowledge about science and math.

These games have science-fiction and scientific themes and possess game mechanics that will test your knowledge of math concepts or give you a flavour of how things work.

Let’s take a look at some of these Learning About Science Board Games.

Learn about geometry with X-Wing Miniatures 2.0

Star Wars is a popular theme and is well-known by many. This unique table-top game puts you in the seat of a Resistance or Galactic Empire starfighter pilot. You and your opponent control a fleet of starships (represented by miniatures) and try to outmaneuver and battle one another in space combat (moving your miniatures ships on the table-top). While this game’s theme is science fiction and based on the movie, the game mechanics will put your knowledge of angles and geometry to the test.

Before battling out and shooting your opponent’s starship out of space, you will need to plan your maneuvers effectively. To maneuver, you will use a set of protractor-like game components to plot your ship’s movement on the space battlefield. Use your knowledge of angles and curves, to position your ship, dodge obstacles and fire those photon torpedoes!

Find out more about how to play here!

Terraforming Mars teaches you about what’s required to make it liveable for humans

Terraforming Mars deals with the complexities of colonising Mars. Mars has been colonised by humans but is currently still expensive to migrate humans over. Players take on the role of corporations, who aim to develop an environment on Mars that is cost-effective for humans to live.

As a corporation, you will compete to take on projects to improve oxygen, ocean and temperature level on Mars. As you develop this, more projects will become available. At the same time, you will need to build your corporation’s production, resources and income to enable you to take on these projects. In this game, you will learn about the challenges of living on Mars (i.e. temperature, oxygen, water). You will need to deal with the complexities of managing production, resources and income to achieve your goals in the most efficient manner.

Find out more about how to play the game here

]]>https://daroolz.com/learning-about-science-board-games-can-be-great-fun-and-help-increase-ones-knowledge/feed/0Co-op Tabletop Games – work together as a team and winhttps://daroolz.com/co-op-tabletop-games-work-together-as-a-team-and-win/
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The category of games that we will focus on this week will be Co-op tabletop games.

These games provide loads of fun for family and friends and makes it less competitive. Instead of competing with each other, you and your friends work together as a team to solve a puzzle or fulfil an objective.

Typically in such games, you will be faced with a timed challenge.

Games such as Pandemic and Forbidden Island, result in you having to solve a puzzle or achieve your objectives before certain events occur. These events occur during gameplay and so, you will need to rush to work together.

Pandemic

In Pandemic, you and your team work together to contain the spread of disease. Events occur during the game that can lead to a quicker spread of the disease. You need to use the special skills of your team to travel around the globe and eradicate the virus.

Reading board game rules is a big pain!

I love board games! It is great bonding time for family and friends. The problem is that reading board game rules is a real big pain!

One has to run through lines of text and jump from section to section to understand the instructions. Once you are done reading, the next painful task is attempting to explain it to other players. There is only 1 rulebook and everyone has to take turns reading it.

daRoolz was started to help take away this pain. Tabletop gaming should be fun and focussed on gaming and not about struggling to get up to speed with the rules.

Through our daRoolz, we hope to make tabletop gaming easy and hassle free by:

providing you with an easy to read guide (we summarise and try our best to split out the rules into logical easy to understand sections)

enabling tabletop gamers to access the rules online and through their mobile devices. This will allow everyone in your game to have a quick read on their device and allow you to get started quickly

providing you with a quick reference so that you can play and refer to the rules at the same time

Our site is continuously improving and adding new board game rule guides, so do visit us frequently or follow us on Facebook or Twitter![/vc_column_text]